Thursday, 30 October 2014

On the off chance your children have yet to remind you, tomorrow is Hallowe'en! If they would like to learn more about the history of Hallowe'en, send them over to our sister Blog, The Diary of Dorothy Whiskers.

Here at The Recipe Resource we have been busy preparing some old favourites with a Hallowe'en twist, and inventing some new ones!

If your little ones are at nursery tomorrow, I posted a lunch box suggestion last year which popped up on Social Media.

You can adjust this to suit your child's diet, so use houmous/sweet potato puree/nut butter on the pumpkin and this could be a roll (just made pumpkin rolls with the Juvela Harvest White Mix here in silicone pumpkin moulds) or savoury cookies. Similarly alter the filling for the celery and se red pepper if strawberries are not tolerated, raisins instead of the olive.... be inventive!

Today I made the chocolate muffins from here which would not work so well for egg allergy sufferers as you are substituting 3 eggs. However, I have used cornbread with cocoa powder which always achieves excellent results. Then I popped them into Hallowe'en cupcake cases from ASDA and iced them with the Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge icing which is, surprisingly free from most things! lastly the ASDA graveyard decoration kit was also free from all we were avoiding but would not suit everyone.

The Krispy Cakes are Little O's (but could have been any cereal) with melted safe chocolate and a little golden syrup mixed with them and left to set, with Haribo Mini Halloween Jellies on top.

There are plenty of Hallowe'en treats available for children with allergies, although most reach for Haribo, but with a bit of imagination and a few cutters, stamps and accessories you can achieve a great deal!

Friday, 24 October 2014

I'm rather pleased with this! Using the wonderful Clearspring Organic Puree pots, I have created mini Crumble Desserts for my two.

These little pots are individually sized, and unlike some of the "baby" versions we have relied on in the past they are not at all watery and make perfect desserts on their own, in baked goods or in a pudding.

Method

To make these I used the Apple and Blueberry purees as October is #AppleMonth . I scooped one teaspoon out of each pot (yum yum!) as without this the pot would become too full and bubble over in the oven.

I then sprinkled on a little of my crumble mixture, which I tend to keep a bag of in my freezer. (You could just as easily crumble a flapjack over the top instead.)

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Disclaimer : These are just some of the ideas I have picked up over the years. I'm a parent, dragged kicking and screaming plunged into freefrom cooking and gradually finding my own way. I'm not a nutritionist, not a health professional, just a parent but one hoping to help others on my freefrom journey.

Many Recipe Resource readers are "MEWS" free, which for those who don't know means "Milk, Egg, Wheat and Soy free". Increasingly however, children (more so than adults) with allergic gut disease are reacting at cell level to gluten - yet are NOT coeliac. I wrote here about the differences between Coeliac Disease and a Gut Allergy to Gluten. They are NOT the same thing. A person may indeed have gut allergies (non IgE responses rather than systemic whole body IgE reactions) AND Coeliac Disease but that is not because they have the same cause. What IS interesting however is that EGID is increasingly likely to have an autoimmune component.

For the purpose of this post, I'm focussing on ways of creating culinary perfection (or close to it!) WITHOUT gluten. Going gluten free is far more involved than removing wheat -but isn't as scary as it sounds.

SO how do you rework your diet to exclude Gluten? Here follows the Ultimate Cheat Sheet on going Gluten Free.1. To exclude Gluten you need to know what it IS.

Wikipaedia states:-"Gluten (from Latin gluten, "glue") is a protein composite found in wheat and related grains, including barley and rye. Gluten gives elasticity to dough, helping it rise and keep its shape and often gives the final product a chewy texture."

And herein lies the problem. Many grains contain gluten, and more are contaminated with it due to milling and production processes.

Wheat starch is actually wheat that’s had the gluten washed out. In some countries, a special type of wheat starch called Codex Alimentarius wheat starch is permitted on the gluten-free diet.

cracker stack image courtesy of thanunkorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

3. Shopping Gluten free
There are now many brands which cater for those eating gluten free and it is becoming increasingly easy to source gluten free products and product replacements. Companies like Udi's, DS Gluten Free, Newburn Bakehouse, Juvela, Genius and supermarket brands all stock an ever increasing range. However, if you are already on a restricted diet this may not be of much help. Our GP practice will prescribe gluten free products as my twins have a diagnosis based on biopsy. However 90% of products available for prescription have soya in which we have to avoid! Multiple food exclusions usually means you are baking yourself...4. Baking gluten free
Many recipes allow for straight substitutions. For example I bake regular sponge cakes with Dove's Farm flour, and although it contains some Xanthan Gum I usually add another teaspoon. Xanthan Gum is a sticky binding agent and replaces the sticky binding role gluten plays in regular wheat flour.

If, however your child is allergic or intolerant to the ingredients in the blended flours you can create your own from tolerated alternatives. Use the following chart to replace wheat/rice with your choice of flour(s).

4. Binding Agents

If your cannot use Xanthan Gum there are some alternative options to replace the elasticity and air trapping gluten brings. The air trapping is especially important because without being able to hold the CO2 made by yeast or baking soda, baked goods can’t rise. Elasticity makes dough more malleable, holding it together so that it doesn’t turn into a crumbly mess after baking!

You have to following to choose from:-

Eggs (rarely an option for allergic children so I won't pursue this although do see my Tiana coconut flour recipes if you tolerate eggs.)

Gums -Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide from fermentation of sugars and used in many food products. It also works as an emulsifier. Guar Gum is similar, coming from the Guar Bean. Both work well in baking. If combined together they thicken and have an effect greater than twice the original effect!

Gelatin such as Agar. This is a vegetarian/vegan option made from seaweed. Not great for baking and definitely better for more brittle products.

Flax Seed Meal/Chia -When hydrated the oils in the flax create a nice viscous solution more similar in baking properties to a gum. The starch granules become hydrated in a viscous solution and the expansion of air cells facilitates gelatinization of the starch which is the binding effect.

5. Thinking outside the box
Sometimes, you need to stop thinking of replacement and start thinking alternatives. Do you need a bread alternative or a pasta substitute? Going gluten free can in fact be quite liberating, although tricky for a child with the aded bonus of suspicion around food and reliance on familiarity.

We are so conditioned in the West to reaching for wheat based carbohydrate than it can take a while to educate the mind AND the palate, but there are many exciting alternatives out there.

Savoury Pancakes with Buckwheat and filled with veg and pulse based mixtures.

Potato cakes, with lentil burgers and tomato sauce.

Lasagna using vegetables sliced to make the layers.

Think basic, natural and fresh, then build up from there. There are increasing numbers of Paleo dietary foods and these are grain free and naturally gluten free and generally healthy. We have become so reliant on wheat and other grains that our overly processed diet is dependent on them. Going gluten free can be tough at first, but you can get used to it. Ensure your child gets sufficient protein to fill them up though - fruit and veg are great but are not very satisfying.

Monday, 20 October 2014

Rather belated I know, but there are still almost TWO WEEKS to get baking before October is out!

There are many different types of apples. They are so versatile although - unlike bananas definitely not a raising agent and can have the opposite effect when baking!

I grew up in a village where we were lucky enough to have a large enough garden with a small orchard. My parents moved away from there only two years ago and I'm still struggling with the loss of my fruit source, my freezer has never been so empty!

Baking with Apples

A basic sponge recipe with ingredients substituted for #freefrom alternatives can be transformed with the addition of cinnamon and nutmeg in the batter, poured on to a circle of apple slices on the base of the tin. Perfect apple cake!

(Obviously you can halve this but I freeze any spare.)
Mix until it is starting to collect together, sprinkle over (defrosted) stewed apple and bake at 180C for long enough that the top goes golden brown.

And if I'm *really* pushed for time, it's a whole cooking apple, core cut out and filled with dried fruit, cinnamon and baked in the microwave (covered in cling film!) for 2-3 minutes. At Christmas time I swap the centre filling for mincemeat!

Thursday, 9 October 2014

Disclaimer - The Recipe Resource were sent five Frank Bars for the purpose of an independent review. The views expressed are entirely my own - or rather those of my fussy, hard to please taste-testers!

"FRANK bars are a deliciously indulgent snack bar made with 100% natural ingredients such as wholegrain oats, dates & dried plums and topped with a delicious dairy free Coconut Cream chocolate. FRANK bars are gluten, nut, & dairy free and are a source of protein, with each bar containing almost 4g of protein per 35g bar. FRANK bars also contain ENERGYSMART®, which is a patented, all-natural combination of carbohydrates from select fruits (apple, grape & pear) plus specially developed natural dextrins from grain which together provide longer-lasting energy. ENERGYSMART® is a registered trademark of Advanced Ingredients Inc. (USA)"

There are currently five Frank Bars available - Oat and Chocolate, Blueberry and Chocolate, Strawberry and Chocolate, Orange and Chocolate and plain Chocolate. They are more cocoa flavoured than "chocolate" and a wonderful chewy-but-not-too-sticky texture.

We were particularly keen to get hold of these because our current favourite bars contain cashew nuts. Whilst this is wonderful for my children's protein intake on their very restricted diet, they were not allowed in school because for some nut allergic children even cashew nuts are dangerous due to processing methods. Frank bars are nut free so this is not an issue.

Another major issue for us is soya avoidance. Too many foods replace dairy with soya and my twins - particularly our daughter are extremely sensitive to soya. The last accidental ingestion caused two days of considerable acute ill health and a month's recovery time. Frank bars are soya free too!

Frank bars also have a sustained energy release so are ideal to carry in bags for energy dips. For us, this is more than a potential unpleasant energy lull, as we have low blood sugars to manage in one child and these can actively help as part of a balanced diet.

So - what did we think?

The twins loved all except (bizarrely?) the plain chocolate bar. Blueberry and Strawberry were a real hit, orange was "good" and the oat one "nice". All round a massive thumbs up!

Our daughter really struggles with foods that are too sticky or chewy so these are fantastic. They are both quite suspicious of new foods, previously associating many foods with pain and discomfort so to spontaneously give a new food a positive endorsement is a huge compliment.

Which were their favourites?

As a parent I'm really pleased to have discovered Frank Bars. They certainly tick all my boxes and I'm delighted that Asda now stock them which makes it a little easier to source them - although I notice you can purchase directly from the Frank website. It's not often this little chap embraces a new food so enthusiastically - hats off to Frank!

Monday, 6 October 2014

This is a single ingredient recipe - well, two if you count the fizzy water!

Method

Mix some millet flour with sufficient sparkling water to make a thick, spoonable "dough".

Fry in a non stick pan/on a griddle, if oil is tolerated you could use a little to stop it sticking.

The finished result:-

You can practice with it to get a more evenly cooked pancake, make different shapes and even add some fat if tolerated. But it's great to be able to achieve something for a toddler unable to eat more than one food.

What is the Recipe Resource?

The Recipe Resource was set up to support those catering for multiple food allergies, particularly in children. My youngest suffer from EGID which amongst other things manifests as reflux and constipation caused by food allergies. Providing a broad spread of alternatives not full of sugars, fillers or preservatives can be quite a challenge!

Please email new recipes to me via the comments facility on this Blog and appropriate ones will be added!